Whittle It a Little, It’ll Fit

Odds and sods I look at regularly, just because they amuse me. I hope they do the same for you. Incidentally, I found this page’s title on Greg Ross’s Futility Closet (it’s somewhere on this page) in a mini-article which also includes the delightful sentence in Icelandic: Barbara Ara bar Ara araba bara rabbabara. Ross points out that this, “besides being fun to say, is spelled with only three letters. It means “Barbara, daughter of Ari, brought only rhubarb to Ari the Arab.”

Weird Universe » The Radioactive Pup of Bikini Atoll

Saturday 30 March 10:22:00 UTC 2024

Operation Crossroads page at Wikipedia.

[Link]

Weird Universe » Estate Willed by Talkie

Saturday 30 March 9:25:27 UTC 2024

Video wills have become quite common, but they weren't back in 1931. So the unnamed testator described below was breaking new ground by creating one (or rather, a filmed will).

I particularly like the detail that he left instructions on where everyone should sit while watching the film, so that he could look at each person directly from the grave. … [Link]

Futility Closet » Address

Saturday 30 March 6:30:16 UTC 2024

Andrew Carnegie’s rules for speaking: Make yourself perfectly at home before your audience, and simply talk to them, not at them. Do not try to be somebody else; be your own self and talk, never “orate” until you can’t help it. As a boy he’d joined a debating club, and “I know of no better mode of benefiting a youth … [Link]

John Gordon Ross

A Man for All Reasons